The only actor Christopher Nolan ever “begged” to be a part of his movies
Despite being a stellar writer, great actors don’t read Christopher Nolan’s scripts before accepting a job offer.
So acclaimed is that British director that the greatest working actors don’t feel like they even need to read their lines, let alone know the plot before diving headfirst into his next project. After several decades and a string of critically acclaimed box office hits, Nolan has reached that hallowed cinematic turf where actors come to him, vice versa.
However, the key word there is actors. Despite being some of the most famous and sought-after people on the planet, it is worth noting that by and large, it is actors who fall at his feet with career ambition. Everyone, from Michael Caine to Matt Damon and Zendaya.
But one man defied that trend, as he did his whole career and refused to accept Nolan’s desperate plea for him to star in one of his films. Instead, he made the director work for it, forcing him to come back a second time with hat in hand and a desperate plea to reconsider.
“The only one I’ve had is David Bowie for The Prestige,” Nolan explained, as he provided a name who is truly befitting of the diva treatment that the director is so unaccustomed to experiencing.
He continued, “He was my great idol and everything, and I thought he’d be perfect to play Nikola Tesla. And we sent him a script and everything. He said no. And first time really ever, I went back and said, ‘Can I just go and meet him? Can I try and convince him in the room?’ And they agreed. And I hastily wrote him a better speech than for his first appearance, turned up with a new script, and basically begged and got him to do it. So I turned the no into a yes.”
The Prestige came at an interesting time in Nolan’s career, not least in terms of asking someone like Bowie to be a part of it. Released in 2006, it preceded the swing into big blockbuster thrillers that he became known for, before The Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception, the films that truly established him as a director actors longed to work with.
But perhaps more importantly, he hadn’t yet made that sort of ambitious casting that he would later be known for. It was after The Prestige that Heath Ledger was surprisingly cast as The Joker and rom-com icon Matthew McConaughey as the powerhouse lead in Interstellar. At that time, Bowie was his first real attempt at bucking casting trends, and so it was understandable that the great musician was somewhat hesitant.
Of course, once the pair aligned and Bowie signed on to be in the film, he brought so much to what was otherwise a cameo role. There was only one man on the planet who could capture the sort of otherworldly mystique of Tesla and sprinkle the necessary magic on the film, because he had spent his entire career up until that point doing exactly that. It may have felt humbling for Nolan, but in terms of all the casting decisions he ever made, it was entirely worth it.
